


Can’t Escape Anything In This Town

by hit_the_books



Category: Supernatural, Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Castiel/Sam Winchester Kissing, Eventual Castiel/Sam Winchester, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Haunting, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26102521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hit_the_books/pseuds/hit_the_books
Summary: Team Free Will 2.0 rock up in LA to check out a series of mysterious deaths all seemingly tied to a corner of the LA contemporary art scene. Needing to infiltrate the community there, Sam plays at being a billionaire, and Cas (at Cas's own suggestion) plays at being Sam's boyfriend.Dean and Jack have no idea what to make of the two of them, though they are far more concerned about the case. There's a pretty high body count already and whatever is behind it needs to be stopped.
Relationships: Castiel/Sam Winchester
Comments: 12
Kudos: 79
Collections: Team Free Will Big Bang: Collection 2020





	Can’t Escape Anything In This Town

**Author's Note:**

> **This fanfic is set after the events of the Netflix movie "Velvet Buzzsaw" (2019). If you haven't watched that, I suggest giving it a go, because you'll enjoy the fic far more**. In terms of Supernatural's own timelines, this is a canon divergent, post season 13 fic where Jack has his soul and Rowena and Mary are not dead. Lucifer and Michael are dead.
> 
> Thanks to my amazing artist thegoodthebadandtheart for some truly stunning pieces to go with this fic. You can find their art master post [here](https://thegoodthebadandtheart.tumblr.com/post/628217322643079168/this-is-my-art-for-the-team-free-will-big-bang).
> 
> Thanks to my beta readers, [Hermit9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9) and [TreeFrogie84](https://archiveofourown.org/users/treefrogie84/pseuds/treefrogie84) for helping me get this fic into shape.
> 
> The title for this fic comes from a song that I can't recall at this point, sorry everyone. But here's [the playlist (not made by me) I listened to while writing the story](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0W9cob4NCfuRWL2yL3gBj9?si=zAXIt5t3Rp6xRezoFxYwLQ).
> 
> When I watched Velvet Buzzsaw for the first time, I couldn't stop thinking to myself the entire time I was watching it: this would make a great case for Team Free Will 2.0, and so I wrote that case.

Los Angeles. Night blaring bright with the haze of a million lights. Hot and sticky—making Sam’s t-shirt and plaid shirt cling to his back. He was thankful for what little breeze was coming through his open window as Dean drove the Impala towards the Airbnb they’d booked—some apartment that intersected nicely in the center of their latest case.

If he was being perfectly honest with himself, Sam would rather they weren’t back in LA again. The last trip, they were looking for Lucifer riding around in the body of Vince Vincente and that close call. He hoped that whatever this case turned out to be, it was more run of the mill, but they still didn’t know what they were facing off against.

“Can I get a water?” Dean called over the back of the seat. He looked about as hot and uncomfortable as Sam did, and he was stripped back to just his usual black t-shirt and jeans. From the back came some rustling and the sound of their faithful Coleman cooler getting unclipped and opened.

“Here,” Cas said, passing a bottle of water over to Dean. “Sam, would you like one?”

Sam was about to say no and realized he couldn’t, his throat was so dry and thick. “Please,” he managed hoarsely. He took the proffered bottle and tore off the lid quickly, gulping back cold relief.

“I’m still unsure how these people died,” Jack said from the back seat, tablet in hand.

Sam looked over the seat at Jack and Cas. Both looked like they were wilting a little in the heat. Even Cas had taken off his trenchcoat. Meanwhile, Jack was sweating through his white t-shirt. It was obvious that no matter how much part angel you were: no one could stand up to the heat.

Clearing his throat, Sam said, “Right? Is it a haunting or a cursed object? I'm puzzled too.”

Cas looked out the window for a moment, deep in thought before turning back and glancing at Sam. “I don’t think we’ll be able to tell until we get more first-hand knowledge of the victims and the events leading up to their deaths.”

“Still, that original cluster… That was over nine months ago. I wonder what changed?” Sam pondered out loud.

It had just been another headline on another online news site, but something about it had caught Jack’s attention and when Dean, Sam and Cas had all looked a little closer, they’d found a grouping of deaths in the LA area that looked, when considered together, suspicious as hell. Six deaths total, all members of the LA contemporary art scene. Many of them big names before they died, but not a single one of them was an artist. Instead they’d all been people involved in the business of art—dealers, gallery owners and so on.

“Can we agree now that looking at the bodies of the original six vics is not going to work? Because I really do not think grave desecration is going to get us anywhere at _this_ time,” Dean offered as he turned off into the underground parking garage of where they would be staying.

Gaining entry to their Airbnb was simple enough, but Dean’s bitching as they brought all their crap inside and spread out between the three bedrooms was a pain in the ass. Sam was sick of his complaining within ten minutes and finally snapped when Dean was done checking the space for cameras and listening equipment.

“It’s for our cover! So shut it!” Sam growled.

Dean pouted, arms across his chest. “And about that! Why do you get to be the secret multi billionaire and not me? Huh?”

Sam rubbed a hand across his face—catching it on the three day growth he’d purposefully been cultivating—feeling the eyes of everyone on him. “Because I know more about art.”

“You do?” Jack asked.

“I took art history at college for a semester.” Sam shook his head and turned back to his laptop bag. “So quit it, Dean.”

Dean harrumphed, but left it alone. The four of them continued to settle into the apartment. It was spacious and had three bedrooms, plenty enough for two humans, a nephilim who kinda slept, and an angel who didn’t. The furniture and decor were like something out of the front cover of an _Art Concept Decor_ issue. In the living room, a group of dark gray couches looked like semi-sentient gray blobs emerging out of a gray poured concrete floor. These were offset by a suede covered cream colored couch, wooden lamps that looked like they wanted to be tripods with red shades stuck on top. There was a massive fake fur (Sam hoped it was fake) rug in the middle of the living room. The kitchen loomed across one wall, all stainless steel and basalt counters. On the opposite side of the space was a huge wall long window, made from separate panes. A set of sliding doors was set into it and led out to a private outdoor pool and patio area. Each bedroom had a California King sized bed, with silk sheets of varying shades between the rooms.

The luxury of their rental was beyond anything Sam had experienced before. And it had come at a complete steal.

“Sam,” Cas started, appearing at Sam’s elbow, “I don’t think it makes sense for both me and Dean to be your bodyguards.”

Cas was incredibly close, but Sam ignored the thrill he felt at this, and straightened up as he turned to face Cas. “Oh?”

“It makes sense for Jack to be your personal assistant. Of course… but perhaps, hmmm… I might be your business partner or-” Cas’s eyes went wide, “your boyfriend.”

Sam could cut the silence with a knife as it fell. Dean and Jack were struck dumb, looking at the pair of them with big surprised eyes. Shock stole Sam’s tongue and he tried to find a way to make words work for him again. He’d cooled down under the air conditioning of the apartment, but now his cheeks warmed up and he had to duck his head, lest everyone else saw his embarrassment.

“Uh, yeah, um. Yeah… That might work,” Sam answered, voice thready. “Excuse me.”

Before anyone else could say anything, Sam hurried off to one of the apartment’s four bathrooms (each room had an en suite and there was a general bathroom too). Picking one in the bedroom he’d staked out for himself, he closed the white paneled door and slowly slid to the blue tiled floor. Breathing fast, heart racing, Sam struggled to find air as he tried to get his emotions marshaled. That he’d been crushing on Castiel since the first time they’d been introduced was not something he’d shared with anyone. He had no idea if Cas or Dean knew how he felt, but Sam had never done anything with these feelings. Despite all the nights Cas had crashed in his room, watching Netflix. And sometimes they cuddled, but it had usually been after Sam had had nightmares.

He was just happy to have Cas in his life, at the end of the day. But pretending to be boyfriends? _It’s for a case_ , Sam reminded himself. _Doesn’t mean anything_ , and with that, Sam felt disappointment swoop in and coil around his heart. He wrapped his arms around his knees and stayed like that for a while.

When he was ready, Sam got up and went over to the faucet. He splashed cold water on his face, dried it and headed back to the living room.

“The Haze Gallery should be just along here,” Jack supplied as Dean drove the Impala through the late afternoon heat. Dean had wanted to sleep, but Sam had insisted they head by the gallery that connected a bunch of the original victims, including the final one from the original cluster. There’d been another death on their drive to Los Angeles and Sam had managed to obtain both the police and coroner files on it once they’d settled in. The fresh second victim, technically eighth, was a gallery employee of the Haze Gallery so it made sense to start there.

Pulling up beside the sidewalk, Dean put the Impala in park and took a long breath before following everyone else out of the car. He put in a Bluetooth earpiece he’d been given as part of his costume and straightened out his black suit. He wore a pair of black sunshades and had on a black t-shirt, with a black suit jacket over the top. It was still way too warm outside of the car, but at least he looked the part, the tips of his black leather shoes a mirror.

He kept several steps behind Sam, Cas and Jack. All dressed very differently to how they looked normally, let alone on a case.

Jack had switched to a pair of skinny jeans and a polo shirt, hair slicked back with firm holding wax. He wore a pair of brown business shoes to complete the look along with a fake pair of silver piercings in his left ear lobe. He looked like any other personal assistant they’d seen the last time they were here, fitting into his role perfectly.

Sam had changed into a pair of pale tan chinos and an expensive white dress shirt open at the neck, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He had open toed leather sandals on his feet, and wooden bead bracelets of various hues gathered around his right wrist. His left had a genuine TAG Heuer Carrera watch, silver-gray wrist strap links glinting in the sun. His shades were fake from some other big name brand. And, embarrassingly (to Dean), he had the top half of his hair secured in a small man bun at the back of his head. But he looked the part.

Meanwhile, Cas was out of his trench coat and usual suit, instead opting to wear a short sleeved dress shirt, in a pale blue, with a beige linen suit that was the right level of crumpled. He had tan brogues on his feet, fake sunshades as well, and Sam had styled Cas’s hair. Dean had watched in amusement back at the apartment as Sam had worked his fingers through Cas’s mop—until he’d seen a look in Sam and Cas’s eyes that had made Dean think that maybe he and Jack should have headed on out and left the two of them to it.

Dean still wasn’t sure what to make of that and was half-convinced that he’d imagined it all. But he still couldn’t be 100 percent sure.

Entering the gallery, Dean scoped the place out, his wary sweep natural for the part he was playing. Sure they’d been to galleries and museums before, but you never knew quite what or who you might run into. But also, keeping an eye out meant that Dean continued to play the role of very-concerned-super-professional personal security, which suited him fine.

The gallery had a series of office spaces, most open, with some glass walls and doors between them. The center of the gallery was dominated by the art they currently had on display. A series of paintings in a myriad of colors brushed onto canvas that if Dean stared at for long enough, would reveal shapes and forms he didn’t fancy remembering.

“May I help you?” asked a young woman, barely over twenty-one. Her short tawny hair was wavy and curling around her ears. She wore a peach colored pant suit and a white blouse that was straining at her bosom. If Dean was the one doing the talking, he’d be flirting by now, instead, he remained stoic, eyes roving around the gallery under his shades.

“Hi, I’m looking to buy an anniversary present for my boyfriend here,” Sam said in a warm commanding tone, voice several Zip Codes away from how he normally spoke. “He’d really been holding out for a Dease, but I told him not to be silly. He knows they’ve become gold dust since Rhodora’s passing.”

Their research before coming to LA had established that the death clusters were centered around the work of a newly discovered, though deceased, artist called Vetril Dease. There had been a flurry of online activity—blogs, social media posts, industry news stories—and then suddenly nothing.

“You knew Rhodora?” the gallery employee asked, eyes going a little shiny.

“Mmhmm. Last time we saw her must have been Miami Beach. Art Basel. We’d managed to get a drink together… and that was the last,” Sam lied. “What’s your name, darling?” Sam queried in a soothing voice.

“Rosalyn,” she replied, bottom lip quivering.

“Well, I’m Sam Edwards and this is my boyfriend Cas Richards,” Sam motioned between them. “This is Jack, my assistant,” Jack waved, “And my personal bodyguard. Dean.”

Roselyn tried to smile and her lip trembled, eyes shining even brighter.

“Hey there,” Cas said, stepping forward, a fresh Kleenex somehow already in hand, “maybe we should sit?”

“Yes,” Sam agreed.

Dean looked around them to see who was seeing this, but noted only three other people in the gallery, all sat at their respective desks. Rosalyn was sniffing now, but led the way to one of the few offices with doors. She waved them to the low white leather couches there and then allowed herself to cry quietly, now that no other employees were in earshot.

“It’s okay,” Cas offered, holding out another Kleenex.

Rosalyn took it and wiped her eyes delicately before blowing her nose. She balled the used Kleenex up in her fist. “But it’s not,” she whispered.

“Look, I know we hardly know each other,” Sam said. “Rhodora could talk to us about her woes, you can too.”

Rosalyn nodded and swallowed. “A team member passed away last night. A friend found her this morning and… Oh god! It’s just so much like Rhodora’s death! The Haze must be cursed, I tell you! Cursed!”

“Do you mind me asking, what happened?” Sam queried. “Jack, get Rosalyn here a glass of water, please.”

Jack jumped up and headed out, walking towards what looked like a communal kitchen area as far as Dean could tell as he watched him through the glass.

“Oh you don’t have to do that,” Rosalyn said after Jack was gone.

“It’s nothing,” Cas offered.

Sam nodded. “So, what happened to your colleague?”

“Why, little Tammy was found with her throat slit, sitting on her couch. The police suspect murder!” she cried.

Cas leaned forward and handed another Kleenex, which was gratefully taken.

Rosalyn, wiped her eyes, took a long breath and patted down her slacks. “But it just feels so much like before, with Rhodora. Rhodora was home, at her place outside the city. She’d just asked our regular movers to take out every single piece of art from her home—I know this, because I had to handle the invoice—anyway. Not long after, from what I understand, somehow, something ripped a mighty deep hole in the top of her back and she bled to death!”

 _The coroner concluded that it was not self-inflicted_ , Dean recalled to himself, _but that he can’t see how it was murder. Cause of death wasn’t determined._

“How shocking!” Sam offered.

Boy, was it weird watching Sam act like a professional rich guy with a boyfriend. Dean knew his brother could act, but this was the first time in a long while he’d been this close to the action and it was making Dean feel uncomfortable. Trying not to let up on observing their surroundings, despite how much he was cringing on the inside, Dean couldn’t help but notice the way that Cas’s hand slipped to Sam’s left thigh and then found his left hand, threading their fingers together. He felt like he should be giving Cas “the talk” and saying something about shotguns and hurting feelings, which was ridiculous, because it was all an act. Though the way they were holding hands, so intimately tight, had Dean doubting this as he tried to keep his wits about him. Had he missed something? Been missing something?

“I just don’t understand. And it’s not just Rhodora or Tammy! First we he had Bryson disappear—and the police now suspect he’s dead.” Rosalyn sniffed. Dean was beginning to understand why she was so distressed.

Rosalyn dabbed at her eyes. “Then poor, poor Jon Dondon, from a rival gallery, hung himself!” she gulped. “Then, dear Gretchen (some might say friend of Haze) died after the _Sphere_ installation malfunctioned—arm chopped right off.” Rosalyn hiccuped.

Dean was starting to wonder if he had been missing the signs that something was there, between Sam and Cas, as much as the LAPD had clearly not seen any links between all the deaths.

“Dear Josephina disappeared, and the police have concluded she either killed herself or she disappeared (she was one of ours, and discovered Dease). There was Morf Vandewalt… he was found with his neck broken, snapped by some cold blooded killer!” Now shaking, Rosalyn sucked in a breath and added, “Then there was Rhodora… until today when Tammy was found.” She started to sob into her hands.

Listening to it all laid out like that, Dean felt they were either facing a serial killer rather than something from their line of work. He wondered if Cas was getting some kind of read on any of this.

The door to Rosalyn’s office opened and Jack came in bearing a silver tray with an open water bottle and a partially filled glass. Condensation slipped down both glass and bottle. Jack offered the refreshment to Rosalyn and she took it gratefully. She sipped some water and then blew her nose as she tried to compose herself.

“But none of you came here to talk about this,” Rosalyn offered weakly, voice hoarse. “You were asking about the Dease, yes?”

Dean watched Jack discretely palm a USB thumb drive from his hand to his back pocket.

“Right, I’d promised Cas one for our anniversary, but if it’s too much trouble to talk about it right now…” Sam tapered off.

Rosalyn held up a Kleenex holding hand. “No, no. We can talk. What’s left is in storage. But I can send word ahead for you to look.” She nodded. “I just need to sort a few things out first. Why don’t you look around at what we have on display, hm?”

“Thank you,” Cas said.

Outside of the office, Dean and Jack stood behind Sam and Cas as they looked at a white canvas covered in lashings of black paint. They were close enough together to quietly talk.

“She’s probably searching for us online,” Sam said as he feigned interest in the painting, pointing to some feature that Dean couldn’t distinguish from the rest bar its position on the canvas.

“Good thing we set up a trail then,” Dean said, looking around their surroundings again.

It had taken paying some money, in Bitcoin, to a hacking group based out of some corner of a basement in West Virginia, but a whole host of fake articles and social media about Sam and Cas had gone up in a multitude of places. The articles were primed to self-destruct via a bot r in five days. It wasn’t like Sam and Cas could risk their faces being everywhere online for an extended period. Not if people began to recognize them from previous “media appearances”.

“Sam, Cas?” called Rosalyn some ten minutes later while they were beside a round hollow sculpture made of bronze. “Please, do go and take a look. I’ve sent word. Give me your cell and I’ll put in the address.”

“That’s blood,” Jack pointed out, grimacing in disgust. With his heightened senses, he could smell the slight tang of iron emanating from the canvas. “In fact,” Jack sniffed deeply, “they’re all covered in blood. It’s mixed with the paint.”

In the distance, a security guard watched them closely. The entire warehouse was covered in security cameras. They wouldn’t be taking a single painting, let alone buring the lot without a few things taken care of first. Jack was definitely getting the feel for the case being a “salt and burn”.

“What’s the chance it’s Vetril Dease’s blood?” Dean asked.

“High,” Cas replied, sniffing at a large, tall painting as Sam squatted beside it, taking photos of it with his cell.

The warehouse was warm, but did have environmental controls to stop the artwork inside from being wrecked. All four of them were wearing thick rubber gloves, which annoyed Jack, because he was sure he’d be able to sense more if he could just touch Dease’s paintings. But Dean and Sam had insisted.

“Aren’t you glad we wore the gloves?” Sam said, standing up to his full height. Jack watched as Sam looked to Cas and seemed to step into Cas’s space without thinking about it. They were awfully close to each other, but Jack wasn’t sure if he should say anything. He didn’t really understand, around Dean and him they didn’t need to play at being boyfriends.

“But despite our snooping,” Dean said, clearing his throat, “I ain’t seeing a whole lot of ghostly activity here. Ghost or curse, guys?”

“Too difficult to tell with what we have here. Sure there’s been deaths, but we have disappearances as well,” Cas said, making no effort to move away from Sam.

Jack decided to try and ignore how the two of them stood. _Not my business_ , Jack told himself and put this thoughts to the case. “Perhaps we should go to where the disappearances happened? Maybe we’ll see something the police missed.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Dean eyed the few open crates by them warily. “We’ll leave this for now… at least we know where it is.”

Two hours later, the four of them were outside a disused gas station, poking around. The pumps were old and rusting, the concrete surfaces looking like ancient bone, paint dirty and cracking. The flaking signage on the top of the awning read “HUMBLE” in big red letters. Jack turned on an EMF reader. There was no power to the gas station, but whenever he pointed it towards the building, the meter would jump.

“Something’s in there,” Jack said.

Heading inside through a backdoor that had already been jimmied open, everyone spread out. The EMF reader got louder in tiny increments, until Jack came to a sink in a break room, under a painting of monkeys around a car. The monkeys were attacking a screaming, topless man. He held the EMF reader up to the painting and it went crazy, beeping and burbling at him.

“I got something!” Jack called out.

Dean, Sam and Cas rushed in and surrounded Jack and looked up the painting. The man looked like he’d been partially burned and chunks of flesh had been gnawed off of him, blood streamed down his chest.

“It’s Bryson Fields,” Sam said, pulling out his tablet from a brown satchel slung over his shoulder. He took a picture of the painting and then pulled up photos of the victims, until he found a selfie he’d posted on Instagram before he’d gone missing. Jack looked from the photo on the tablet and then to the painting—there was no mistaking it was the same man.

Jack looked closer at the frame surrounding the painting. There was a dried black ooze staining the discolored wall beneath it. He waved the EMF reader by the stain and it jumped again. Cautiously, he held his hand an inch from the stain and closed his eyes. He sensed the cold clawing draw of non-life trapped between and within.

“Ectoplasm,” Jack said, pointing at the stain.

Dean stood back from the painting. “You know, Bryson was rumored to be delivering crates of Dease’s work to a storage warehouse before he went off grid. The crates were found by the truck abandoned here. Most of the paintings had been burned that had been in the truck, but some hadn’t. Cops thought it was caused by a stray cigarette. Maybe the paintings are haunted, because of the blood.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Sam said. “The Dease paintings were on public display in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Gretchen Hillard was the only person who died during that exhibition. Meanwhile, the Dease paintings Bryson was transporting were outside, but this painting was here… and it doesn’t look a thing like a Dease.”

Jack sniffed the air. “There’s blood in the canvas,” he sniffed deeper, “but it’s not the same as the Dease paintings and it’s fresher.”

“Rhodora had removed _all_ art from her home before her death,” Cas pointed out.

“So, how’s Dease killing people?” Jack asked, perplexed.

“I’m not sure,” Cas replied as he pulled out a pair of rubber gloves and slipped them on. He leaned over the sink and pulled the painting off the wall. “But something tells me that we should burn this painting so that Bryson Fields can find eternal rest.”

Dean and Sam were in agreement. They found an old metal bathtub and set the painting in that, setting it on fire carefully. Within moments, a cold feeling passed over Jack and was gone. They watched the painting burn until it was nothing but ash.

Still unsure what was going on, the four of them returned to central LA and their Airbnb. With access to their laptops and a consistent internet connection, Sam was able to use the information Jack’s USB had cracked from the Haze Gallery computer systems, and use it to hack into their network and stored files. They ordered Chinese and all waited as Sam delved into the gallery’s files, looking for information on Dease.

Cas stayed inside with Sam as Jack took advantage of the pool, and Dean researched the LA art scene from a pool side chair. Things had been interesting since he’d suggested they play boyfriends.

Cas’s thoughts drifted as he sat in Sam’s space, only half researching. He could lie to himself and say he wasn’t sure what possessed him to make such a suggestion, but he had an inkling of what was running around inside his own psyche.

Compared to the first few years he had known Sam, they were now far closer than they had been. All in spite of everything that had happened between them. And especially since Lucifer’s possession of Cas, he found frequent solace in Sam’s room. Watching Netflix into the night as Sam slept beside him. Sometimes watching together.

Orbiting each other. Gentle touches. Cuddling when no one else was around. _Would it ever be more?_ Cas wondered, and felt the phantom hold of Sam’s fingers earlier in the gallery.

Pushing such reflections away, Cas tried to concentrate on the case and the files he was looking over, to see if there was anything they had missed. Sam was a studious statue beside him, mouse hand scrolling through document after document. The harsh modernity of their surroundings had Cas wistfully harking after the quiet of the Bunker’s library, but he still wanted to be at Sam’s side.

“I got something!” Sam eventually called, making Cas jump. It was late, the lights of LA were bright halos against the night sky.

Dean and Jack joined Sam and Cas. Jack was wrapped up in a towel and drying off, as Sam walked them through what he’d found, with Cas sat beside him.

“So, get this. Morf Vandewalt was working on a book on Dease. Rhodora had given him exclusive access to the work of Dease and helped him pull together what information was available. A few months before his death, Morf sent Rhodora an initial draft of the book and I think I’ve found it.” Sam grinned. “There’s a few other emails as well with tidbits.”

“And?” Dean pressed.

Sam swigged a mouthful of beer and pointed at the screen. “Well, in the draft for the book, Morf opens up with, ‘Vetril Dease first appears in a 1930 Los Angeles census, living in a low-income home with his father, mother and younger sister. Nine years later, Vetril is listed with his father as the only survivors of a suspicious fire which swept their house.’”

“We got strike one for traumatic childhood,” Dean said, holding up a finger. “It get any better?”

“Oh yeah,” Sam said. “Morf continued, ‘Shortly after the fire, Vetril’s named in a court document. Citing cruelty beyond the bounds of humanity, child protection services removed Vetril from his abusive father and place him in the Good Templars Orphanage in South Vallejo.’”

“Strike two,” Jack offered. Dean nodded and held up another finger.

Sam licked his lips and continued to read. “So, Morf said, ‘His time there is a mystery, the only record being his departure at eighteen. But the real mystery is what follows. Dease disappears for three decades, vanishing like a ghost. He suddenly resurfaces on the payroll of the Sawtelle Veterans Administration, where he was employed as a janitor for forty-two years.’”

“That doesn’t scream whatever this is,” Dean said, waving a hand at Sam’s laptop.

“Morf uncovered a few things and told Rhodora that he thought Dease might have killed someone at Sawtelle, and he was never caught. But there’s more. Jon Dondon, the vic who owned the rival gallery? He had a P.I. investigate Dease’s background. The P.I. sent a report in an email to Jon, which Jon forwarded onto Rhodora in the hope that she would cut him in on the Dease sales if he didn’t release the information. I think he hoped the risk of damaging Dease’s image as he was becoming a darling of the art world in death would make Rhodora cave. The email showed that Dease was an unhinged and dangerous individual.”

“How unhinged and dangerous?” Jack asked.

Sam and Cas shared a look.

“In his email to Rhodora, Jon said he’d uncovered that Dease in his twenties had, after two years in the army, suffered some kind of breakdown and tracked down his abusive father and murdered him. And not just murder, he dragged it out for days, torturing him and then burning him alive.’”

“That’s strike three,” Dean said in a higher than usual voice. They all felt uncomfortable.

Sam chuckled darkly. “Oh, don’t worry, there’s more. He then spent, ‘[…] two decades in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. The facility used inmates for medical experiments. Injections, shocks. God knows what else. They were human guinea pigs,’ according to the P.I.’s report. The report goes on to show that when the place was closed down by officials, Dease came to LA, and then moved onto Sawtelle, as Morf found.”

“Hell,” Dean said as he blew out a long breath. “For a recently dead guy, he died, what? Less than a year ago, he’s got some juice—you don’t suppose those experiments…” Dean trailed off.

Cas nodded. “I would say that we’re dealing with a very powerful haunting and that in life, latent psychic abilities were awoken within Dease, which have carried on into death.”

“That’s peachy.” Dean walked over to the refrigerator and got four beers out, passing the bottles round to everyone. “So, how’s he choosing his victims or killing them? Should we round up all his paintings and burn them?”

“Still working on the first two,” Sam said and took a draw of beer. “But that last one? Josephina speculated in an email to Rhodora that Dease had created over a 1000 paintings in his lifetime. And while most are accounted for… there are a whole bunch that aren’t.”

Mulling over what Sam had uncovered, Cas stood and placed a hand on Sam’s left shoulder. Everything was starting to make some kind of sense. “Everyone who came into contact with Dease’s art and likely had a desire to profit from it? Unlike people who were just attending the exhibition at the LACMA, they all died.”

Dean, Sam and Jack stared at Cas, and then he watched as their faces changed as they did the same assessment of the evidence they had been presented with.

“And,” Cas added, “Dease was somehow able to control art in the vicinity of them and use it to kill them.”

Sam placed his hand on top of Cas’s and gave it a squeeze. “How can we be sure? Rhodora had removed all art from her home!”

Cas mentally flicked through the pages of evidence they had poured over during the past few days. Photos and testimonies. Reports and social media profiles. He recalled a shot of the former Haze Gallery owner. She’d been looking over her right shoulder, photographed from behind. Cas let go of Sam’s shoulder and picked up Sam’s tablet and started swiping through images until he found the one he remembered. There, on Rhodora’s upper back, near her neck on her right side, was a tattoo of a buzzsaw, with the words “Velvet Buzzsaw” inked along it.

“See this,” Cas said, pointing, “this tattoo killed her. Dease brought her tattoo to life. It’s right where the coroner’s report showed the killing wound to be!”

“What about Josephina?” Dean and Jack said in unison.

Cas nodded and then stabbed a finger at the tablet again. “I bet, if we go to where Josephina was last seen, we will find a piece of art that has consumed her. Much like with Bryson.”

They went out into the LA night.

After a few wrong turns and driving around, they tracked down a bar that was the favorite haunt of artists who didn’t enjoy the kind of art scene that the Haze Gallery supported. It took some close inspection but they found a graffiti mural outside a bar that very clearly held the image of Josephina and somehow managed to exorcise her with the creative use of lighter fluid.

They had no hope of tracking down the rest of Dease’s works. Too many had been scattered to the wind. In the end, they relied on a spell from Rowena, enacted by Sam with support from Cas, Dean and Jack, saw an end to all works of Vetril Dease, no matter where in the world they were. The spell consumed all paintings in a quick magical fire that left no trace of blood soaked paper or canvas.

With Dease also having been cremated, there was nothing left for them to do but head on back to Lebanon and look for their next case. Sam wasn’t sorry to see the back of Los Angeles as Dean hit the highway and drove them home, though Sam was a little sad that he and Cas hadn’t had the chance to pretend more at being boyfriends. Though it did feel good to leave with a win on their side. _Two-one to LA_ , thought Sam, briefly flashing back to the trouble with Lucifer wearing Vince Vincente.

Back at the Bunker, Sam expected things to go back to normal with Cas. After all the case was well and truly over. They didn’t need to be boyfriends anymore after driving back across the country in a day, taking turns at the wheel of the Impala. Still, Sam hoped Cas would want to watch Netflix with him every now and then.

Their first night back, Sam had his teeth brushed and had slipped into some comfy old black sweats and a baggy red tee. He was sitting up in bed, back resting on the headboard as he scrolled through what was available on Netflix. He and Cas were between series, but Sam didn’t want to pick anything without Cas’s say. Not that Sam managed to normally watch most of what they watched—normally he’d drift off to sleep and wake up briefly when Cas tucked him into bed.

Sam let out a long sad breath and thought about what genre Cas might be in the mood for. There was a knock at his door, like Cas normally did. Three short knocks.

“Sam, may I come in?” Cas called on the other side of the door.

“It’s unlocked,” Sam replied, setting his TV remote down.

Cas came to the side of the bed and toed off his shoes, then pulled his tie a little looser. His trench coat was somewhere else. Cas slipped his suit jacket off and set it down on the chair. All this took mere moments and then he climbed up on the bed and sat beside Sam, legs stuck out in front of him as he leaned against the headboard.

“What are we watching?” Cas asked. “We finished that one with the dogs…”

Sam looked over at Cas, not replying. Instead his thoughts ran around in his head and a little voice asked why he hadn’t tried kissing Cas at the gallery—to really play up the role. He knew it wasn’t for lack of wanting to. Silence stretched on between them as Cas turned to face Sam and the voice suggested now that he should try. Should just take a peek and find out if there was something more than just pretending to hold hands, not that it had felt like pretend at the time.

“Sam, I-” Cas started, but before he could say anything else, Sam’s lips were on his.

Sam kissed Cas softly at first and then as Cas started to kiss back, the kiss deepened. Coming up for air, eventually, Sam noticed Cas’s eyes were dark and wide, lips swollen. Sam was pretty sure he looked the same.

“Cas, I…” Sam trailed off, unable to finish saying anything as language drifted out of his reach.

Instead of trying to find words for Sam, Cas leaned forward, gently touching the back of Sam’s neck so he could draw him in for another kiss.

Coming up for air again, Sam smiled and leaned into Cas’s space until he was curled up against Cas’s side with Cas’s arm around him.

“What were you going to say?” Sam asked lightly.

Cas circled his thumb over a patch of Sam’s arm. “How about boyfriends?”

“Sounds good to me,” Sam replied, stomach swooping to dangerous heights as years of anticipation crashed inside of him.

“Good.” Cas leaned in and kissed Sam again.

They didn’t find anything to watch on Netflix that night, but that was fine. Though the following evening, Sam refused to watch an art documentary series and Cas said he didn’t blame him.

The night after, Sam and Cas watched Dean and Jack at dinner exchange money, with Jack having won a bet that Cas and Sam were together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. Kudos and comments appreciated. Don't forget to check out [thegoodthebadandtheart's art post!](https://thegoodthebadandtheart.tumblr.com/post/628217322643079168/this-is-my-art-for-the-team-free-will-big-bang)
> 
> You can find me on Pillowfort at [dreamsfromthebunker](https://www.pillowfort.social/dreamsfromthebunker), Dreamwidth at [hit_the_books](https://hit-the-books.dreamwidth.org/), Tumblr at [hitthebooksposts](https://hitthebooksposts.tumblr.com/), and Twitter at [hitthebookspost](https://twitter.com/hitthebookspost).


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